Blue And Green Are (not different) Colors
by AnimeMangaAngel
Summary: Because Joe has eyes, and not every kid in the orphanage were orphans. (read inside for warnings, please - heavy content)


**Title: Blue And Green Are (not different) Colors**

**Rating:** T+ (16+)

**Summary:** Because Joe has eyes, and not every kid in the orphanage were orphans.

**Warnings:** past child abuse, aftereffects of abuse, shifting narration tenses, nightmares, fear of touch, minor character suicide, suggestion of of-screen 24, minor OC

**A/N:** For a change of pace, this one's actually carmineeyes' (also on tumblr, and knows axl-fox, coincidentally) doing!

It was easy to miss, it really was. But it wasn't Joe's fault that he was observant.

_He was seven, and Aoi had been part of their small group of orphans for about a month. She stuck to herself a lot, and stayed so quiet that Joe and the other children often forgot she was even around. That young, he didn't understand it, but he knew enough to know that she was both relieved by their forgetfulness, and hurt by it._

_He was young, and stupid, and kind. When he approached her deliberately about playing together, she began to cry, her green eyes shut tight. He ran to get the Father; by the time they got back, she'd hidden herself away in her corner of the girls' room. Father praised him, and then told him to go play; the Father would make sure Aoi was okay._

Years later – one murder, kidnapping, and unwilling set of body-modifications later – Joe met Jet.

Jet was loud and brash; the opposite of Aoi in every way. Jet wanted to be seen… Or, rather, Jet wanted to know who was looking. Joe noticed the way the redhead would get antsy in quiet but crowded rooms. He always did better when the attention was on him _because of_ him, as opposed to maybe only on him by accident and circumstance. He hated not knowing if they were focusing on him in ways he couldn't control.

_He kept asking – carefully, after the first, because he didn't like to see girls cry – and she got used to him. Eventually, Aoi would agree to color with him, or read near him. She didn't like it when the other kids came too near, but at least just talking to her didn't make her cry anymore._

Jet was heavy-handed and hot-headed, always ready for physical contact with someone else. He was forever slinging his arm – a little too hard – around the others' shoulders, clapping them on the back, getting in their space as they moved and mildly shoulder-checking them. And Joe noticed how – in the absence of touch, Jet curled in on himself, just a little.

But – just like Aoi, and also so very much not – when he reached out to Jet, trying to give the other cyborg what he needed, it back-fired. When he laid a gentle hand on Jet's arm, Jet hurled the touch away, snarling and spitting like a wet cat. When he 'casually' settled next to Jet on the couch – close enough to touch but far enough away to (hopefully) avoid startling the Italian-American – a suddenly-grumpy Jet lumbered to his feet and grumbled something about taking a walk.

And – just like Aoi – the more Joe tried, the more he understood. He held out a hand for Jet to slap when an enemy was defeated. He walked by close enough that, if Jet was in the mood, Joe could be bumped into on lazy mornings walking into and out of the kitchen. He walked into a room and began conversations with Jet, deliberately catching the other's attention.

Jet loved touch… But only if **he** were initiating it. And 'gentle' was not a word Joe knew if Jet understood.

_Aoi had a doll that she carried everywhere. It was a delicate thing, all porcelain and silk and pretty paint. It's eyes were as green as hers. When Joe asked, she said it was her best friend… besides Joe. It was the closest she ever got to openly admitting she was okay around him. That cool skin was the closest she got to touching anyone else, too._

_The first made Joe happy. The second made his heart ache, and he didn't know **why.**_

The only time Joe really saw the tension ease out of his shoulders, saw a quieter sparkle in his blue eyes, was when Françoise passed Ivan into his lanky arms. Here, with the infant-who-was-not, Jet was careful, and gentle, and soft, even as his laughter boomed ever louder and he bounced on his toes with more delight than usual.

Jet would never admit to anyone that he would do anything for the cyborg who bore the number that had temporarily been his. He would certainly never admit that when Ivan requested a pick-up, Jet practically raced to do so if Françoise wasn't the one Ivan was calling for. That was the only time Joe saw Jet let another initiate contact. It was the only time he saw the Italian-American be careful around another – Jet was even rough-and-tumble with the few children that crossed their paths' for Heaven's sake!

And while the fact that Jet was so close-mouthed made Joe want to frown in sympathetic pain… the fact that **someone **had his trust still brought a private, small smile of relief to Joe's face, instead.

_One night a dance and chorus of lightening and thunder woke Joe from deep sleep. The sound of rain on the roof of the church, and echoing through the vaulted ceilings and dusty turrets, drowned it out mostly. The other kids seemed to be sleeping through the cacophony well enough, anyway._

_But Joe was up and awake. Even at nine, he knew himself; there was no going back to sleep in this noise, not tonight. Every once in a while it happened – mostly without a storm to blame, which was annoying – but not often, so he put up with it. He even had a routine: sneak into the kitchens. It was there that, for one, he could grab a late-night snack, and two, he could see the stars (or, on a night like this, watch the lightening)._

_But tonight, he wasn't alone. Aoi sat in the kitchen's picture window like a pale doll, hair nearly hiding her face. Joe had learned the kids of things that kept Aoi from bolting – just walking up to here, especially here and now, would **terrify** her – and cleared his throat only just loud enough to be heard over a thrum of thunder that rattled the window pane._

_Predictably, she jerked around, the white's of her eyes making the green eerie-bright in the storm-glow. After a breathless moment, she saw him and then **recognized** him, and her shoulders fell minutely. She cautiously flickered a hand in greeting, which he returned habitually._

_"I was gonna get a snack," he informed her. She hated not knowing why he was hanging around, but managed if the answer was more than 'just because'. "Woke up and couldn't sleep. You want anything?"_

_She shook her head, watching him with more curiosity than worry. When he was done assembling a modest rice ball set, she surprised him by gesturing to the empty side of the window. He took it, eager to take what overtures of friendship she had to offer. He 'carelessly' left one of the rice balls on the sill between them._

_After an hour of silent companionship, watching nature work, her voice sounded, strong and warm for all she was whispering in deference to the sleeping world around them. She told him in flowing, artistic sentences of her nightmares – her eyes were distant, and he wondered if she even remembered he was there, but he didn't dare get up, in case he scared her. And she apparently had a lot to be scared of._

_Her drunk mother, for one. Memories of beatings that would last hours, and a thin, pleading father who cleaned her up gingerly when his wife was unconscious. A younger brother, shaken to death in his crib. Hiding bruises and injuries from neighbors and teachers, for fear of retribution – one that was always more harsh sober than drunk. And, last, of screaming until a neighbor knocked the door in, when she walked into the living room to a mother so drunk she was unresponsive, and a father with a slit throat. She was brought to the church, and she knew her mother was still alive. It was just, Aoi believed, a matter of time before the woman found a way to steal her back._

_Joe fled when she'd been silent for longer than five minutes. He spent the rest of the night curled in his bed, shaken by the cruelty of the world. The next morning, there were only rice grains on the sill; Aoi smiled, full and bright, completely open with (and at) him for the first time._

Passing through the silent corridors of the _Dolphin_ on a quiet night, once more kept up by his mild insomnia – made worse as of late, by his 'new' body – Joe heard noises in the cabin that Jet claimed for himself. He was going to ignore it, call it nothing and move on – who knew if Jet had finally gotten around to talking to a taciturn Albert about 'things' or not? War was stressful – but then a fear-filled noise had him changing his mind.

A quick hand to the scanner, and the cabin door came open. Joe was met with a lanky, pale-skinned redhead, bare but for a pair of dark boxers and tangled messily in only a thin set of sheets. Sweat stood out on his skin, and even as Joe watched, his face contorted and he groaned again, fists clenching hard enough to rip the material.

Joe scrambled closer, not wanting to let Jet stew in any nightmare – with what they did, it could be bad, indeed – and it was only then that he saw the numerous, tiny tears in the sheets. Each was repaired with thread, and it was clear that the mender had been at it a long time – some of the rips were stitched mess and jagged, unpracticed, while others were tight and neat. Jet had been having nightmares longer than any of them recognized, Joe was willing to bet.

And now that his attention was on it, Joe realized that in the field, he'd never seen Jet sleep with the rest of them. Do guard duty, sure. Watch over the injured, of course. Lay there, silent and still? Only because he was injured and unwillingly unconscious. Joe felt his heart clamber up in his throat for his friend.

There was no way that Jet would be pleased to have anyone know of this.

When a hoarse, pleading whimper slipped through cracked lips – "_Per favore, Papá! Per favore, no! Prometto che__sarò buono__!_" – Joe didn't need his translator to make sense of it. And he didn't need Jet waking – furious, in his face, loud, brash (so very unlike Aoi)... betrayed (and yet painfully mirrored)... to know that he **really** didn't need to be there when Jet woke.

The next morning, when Jet wandered in to find Joe fixing rice balls for breakfast, he snagged two off the plate without warning, blue eyes sleepy. All Joe got was a grain-muffled thanks and a distracted hand-wave as a slowly-waking Jet sauntered back out. For as small as it was, it eased a knot that the night before had put in his chest. Jet was still Jet.

_When he asked the Father, the Father sighed and his eyes were sad. He said that her mother was dead; had died before anything could happen to her. He said that Aoi was haunted, and it was good of Joe to be her friend._

_Aoi was taken away when they were ten, under a white sheet. The Father told him he tried, and trying was the best any of them could do._

No one needed to tell Joe Jet's father was dead; it was inherent in what they were, and when Jet had been taken. And no one needed to tell him that – as different as it showed in those half-hidden blue eyes than it had in her own wide green – Jet was haunted.

Unlike Aoi, Jet would never know that Joe had guessed. He'd never do that to the redhead's pride. Unlike Aoi, Jet was a fighter in a world that needed his strength; he'd find no healing out there. Unlike Aoi, Jet was better at hiding that there was something **to** hide.

Unlike Aoi, Joe would make **sure** Jet never fell without someone to catch him.


End file.
